


What friends are for

by PenguinofProse



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28698819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: Written for 100 fics for BLM. Clarke and Echo friendship fic. Echo is injured in Sanctum and Clarke takes care of her. Hurt/comfort with background Becho.
Relationships: Echo & Clarke Griffin, Minor Bellamy Blake/Echo - Relationship
Comments: 14
Kudos: 30
Collections: The t100 Writers for BLM Initiative





	What friends are for

**Author's Note:**

> Here's another fic written for 100 fics for BLM! Again, if you're interested in finding out more or prompting something yourself, come look for us on Tumblr or Twitter or follow the link below.
> 
> This prompt was for an Echo and Clarke friendship with hurt/comfort. Echo has been wounded towards the end of S6 bringing down the primes. There's Becho in the background but it's not the main focus of this fic. If you came here hoping for Bellarke, I cheerfully recommend turning around and trying one of my other fics instead. Huge thanks to Zou for betaing this. Happy reading!
> 
> Content note: injury, low self esteem, references to Clarke and Echo's canon-compliant historical trauma.

**Here's the link if you want to find out more!<https://t100fic-for-blm.carrd.co/>**

Echo is no stranger to being wounded in action.

She's not that bothered about the pain, as she grits her teeth and waits to have the bullet removed from her upper arm. Sure, it hurts, but she's known worse. And there's nothing new about making physical sacrifices in the course of doing her duty, nothing new about being held down for a spot of emergency battlefield medicine without anaesthetic.

The only novel thing about this situation? She's never had Clarke Griffin as her surgeon before now.

She registers a little surprise at that, through the fog of pain and blood loss. Clarke ought to be busy with something more important, no? She is the golden girl of the hour, is she not? Clarke is the woman Bellamy dropped everything to save, the glorious leader for whose sake they have all been fighting in Sanctum.

It is, albeit indirectly, Clarke's fault Echo has been shot.

But as the pain fades out and the darkness creeps in, Echo finds that she is no longer able to contemplate that.

….

Echo does not wake up all at once. She's in a bed, she thinks - either that or the cold gravel of Sanctum has suddenly got a hell of a lot softer.

Bellamy is there, and then he's not. Jackson, Raven, Emori.

Clarke.

"Go back to sleep. You're stubborn, I'll give you that."

She huffs out a weak snort. _Obviously_ she is stubborn. Possibly the only person in this universe as stubborn as Clarke herself, she likes to think.

…..

She does a little better, with time. She opens her eyes for entire minutes at a stretch, speaks whole coherent words.

"Why am I still stuck here?" She asks Jackson.

"You lost a lot of blood and it was a messy wound." He offers, factual but not unsympathetic. "You'll be alright with time."

She nods. She'll be alright with time. She hates answers like that. She is not a woman made for lying in a hospital bed.

It's Clarke who pops in, just a few minutes later. She has the look of one who is not here to linger, but Echo wonders if maybe that's just Clarke's usual face. Her standard brisk, businesslike attitude.

"Why are you here?" Echo asks. Her questions have not been subtle, today.

"Bellamy asked me to keep an eye on you. He rushed off with Octavia to check something out. You know what he's like." Clarke says.

Hmm. Yes. Echo does know what he's like, actually. Rushing off with his sister, rushing off after Clarke - this is the way he operates. He drops everything and runs when the people he cares about are in danger.

That's reassuring, on one level. By that logic, she must not be in danger. Her wound must be trivial, otherwise Bellamy would be here now.

"To check what out?" Echo asks, frowning, already trying to raise her head a little off the pillow. She's not sure why she bothers, really - she is plainly in no state to rush out there and follow him.

"The temporal anomaly and some tattoo on Octavia's back that seems to match it. She and Bellamy and Gabriel were all for walking straight out there into it, but I think I managed to talk them out of it."

"Oh? Well done." Echo says, somewhere between worried and cynical and sarcastic.

"Gabriel promises he'll do some more research before he gets too excited."

"Or before Bellamy and Octavia can do anything impulsive."

"Exactly."

Echo smiles tiredly. Loving a Blake is a losing game, she sometimes thinks. Bellamy really does have a knack for putting himself in dangerous situations. And of course that's part of what she loves about him - the way he's so open and fierce and generous with his love. That's why he welcomed her into his family even after all the wrong she had done him and his sister.

But it's exasperating, too.

"I'll leave you to rest." Clarke says.

Echo blinks, taken by surprise. She shouldn't be, of course. Clarke is only checking in on her out of friendship by association via Bellamy. Naturally she would leave when a break in the conversation presented itself.

It's just that Echo is bored and feeling low, not accustomed to lying in a sickbed while Bellamy is throwing himself at trouble. And she was quite enjoying that conversation, for all that it was hardly a thrilling one. She just thought, for a few minutes there, that she and Clarke were seeing eye to eye.

But Clarke must be busy, of course. There are other wounded. And above all, she probably has some great and important political crisis to deal with.

So it is that Echo keeps her thoughts to herself, because keeping her own counsel is what she does best. She simply nods and waves Clarke on her way.

….

Echo is feeling rather more functional, the next day.

That is to say, she is coherent in conversation and can think at something like her usual speed. Her arm is still painful, and her body still feels oddly heavy. Even raising her head to take a drink is effort.

But she's doing better. She should probably get up and get on with her life. Lying around here isn't helping anyone.

Clarke comes to visit, late in the morning. By that time, unfortunately, Echo is already getting rather restless.

"Hey. How are you doing?" Clarke asks, in what she supposes is meant as a calm, soothing, _doctor_ tone.

"I've been better. How long are you planning on keeping me here?"

Clarke narrows her eyes. "I'm not _keeping you here_." She says, sharp. Echo is reminded very abruptly that they have not always been on the same side. "If you want to get out of bed, suit yourself. If you think you can move without passing out, be my guest. But I'll want to check that wound a couple more times today. It's messy. So don't go far. Try stopping if you get tired." She recommends, brow quirked, cynical humour out in full force.

Echo is never one to back down from a challenge. And to be honest, she thinks it is worse that this is a challenge coming from _Clarke_. She has an interesting history with this woman, and a little too much in common to be truly comfortable on such shaky acquaintance, even if they share close friends, now. So it is that she feels a sudden urge to get out of bed and take herself on an expedition, just to prove she can. With that decided, she sits up in bed.

Well, she tries to at least. She _fails_ to sit up in bed, ends up slumped over her own knees and seeing stars.

She takes a deep breath, tries to regain control of her limbs through sheer force of will. She has fought battles in worse shape than this, before now. She can do this. She will not fail now.

"Perhaps we could go for a walk together." Clarke suggests mildly, taking her by surprise. "I have to go check in with Jackson. But I can be back in half an hour or so?"

"You want to go for a walk with me?" Echo repeats, so shocked she is almost confused.

"I want you to go for a walk, and you can't go alone." Clarke replies.

That's not quite the same thing, of course. But it's more friendship than Echo expected, so she nods and sinks back into bed.

…..

Clarke is as good as her word - or better. Only twenty-three minutes later she presents herself at the foot of Echo's bed. Echo rather thought she had the monopoly on such things as accuracy and punctuality and attention to detail, in space. Maybe Raven shared the crown, on a good day. But once again, Clarke is a somewhat disconcerting presence in her life - someone she wants to like, or wants to be like, or perhaps both.

"Thanks for doing this." Echo says, tone level. She still has not quite figured it out.

"Any time. We have about an hour before I need to be back to collect Madi."

Echo nods. She accepts Clarke's elbow, eases herself into a sitting position and then to her feet.

"How's that?" Clarke asks.

"Better. Thanks." Echo swallows, gathers her courage. She doesn't lack courage on the battlefield, but she has always found that human relationships require a rather different kind of bravery. "Why are you doing this, Clarke?"

"I'm a doctor - or I used to be, before Earth. Taking care of people is what I do."

"Yes. Bandaging their wounds, perhaps. But I don't see you taking every patient for a walk." She's not sure what makes her want to keep digging, but there is something here, she's sure of it. Her spy senses are telling her so.

"I guess maybe I'm practising being your friend." Clarke says, apparently trying to laugh at herself. "Bellamy asked me to keep an eye on you. Raven seems to have decided you're her closest friend, now, and that I'm not worth her time. You've been kind and fair to me since we landed on Sanctum even when my old friends haven't. I thought it was maybe time for us to get to know each other."

Echo nods. She can understand that. It's about the same strategy she would have employed herself, in Clarke's shoes, she thinks. A loyal friend is always worth having. She knows that, because she has had precious few of them in her life to date.

"Raven will come around. I think it's harder for her - she struggles to see things fairly when she is hurting. And she's often hurting."

"Yeah. I know. She was like this before - with Finn."

They walk a couple of slow steps towards the door. Echo is tired and feels weak, but not dizzy. This is progress, she thinks.

"And you?" Clarke asks. "Why were you so… reasonable? We hardly have a long history of friendship."

"Bellamy." Echo says simply. She tries to shrug, but that wound in her arm really must be messy as Jackson said because it hurts like hell. "I guess there's also the way you saved me before, in Praimfaya. You didn't know me back then except as an enemy and you still saved me. I know it wasn't personal - saving people is what you do. But I still figured I owed you a favour."

Clarke snorts. "Saving people is what I do?"

"Yeah. You should hear the stories they used to tell about you, on the Ring. Like you were some kind of saint. They'll come round when they've processed that you're alive after all, and not the martyr they thought you were."

Clarke nods. "It can be easier to like someone when they're dead."

Echo supposes that might be true, actually. But it strikes her as a sad way to look upon the world. This conversation with Clarke has been fascinating in that regard - she is no fool, and knows that Clarke has seen more than her fair share of troubles. But she is so instinctively used to viewing her as the golden girl of Bellamy and Monty and Harper's stories that it is a shock to the system to see the real, messy person behind that legend.

They find some seats in a waiting room, and Clarke suggests a rest. Echo is glad of that, because she is sorely in need of a rest, and yet even with the injury her pride is still getting in the way of suggesting it for herself.

Is it _pride_? She's not sure. Maybe instead it is crushing insecurity, the fear of what her purpose is when she is too injured to hold a bow.

"Are you doing OK?" Clarke asks, frowning at her face as if the answer will be written there.

"Fine." Echo says shortly.

"Which is what you would say if you're not fine." Clarke points out.

Echo feels her lips curve, just the slightest bit. "OK. Then I'm not fine. Are any of us fine? I don't know about you, but I've got a hole in my arm, I'm on a strange planet, and Bellamy has just run off into danger without me. I've been better."

"Me, too." Clarke agrees softly.

They sit in silence for a moment. It could be worse. At least this is a waiting room at the other end of the hall, not her hospital bed. At least it is a change of scenery.

Who is she kidding? Echo is going stir crazy, here.

As if she has read her mind, Clarke speaks up. "Interesting - you're worried about Bellamy going without you. It's not as if you could protect him much with your arm in a sling."

"It's not just about protecting him." Echo snaps. "There is that. But it's also - being there for him."

Clarke nods calmly. "Yes. That need to be by his side, even if you can't do anything to help. To crawl from your sickbed if you have to because you can't bear to think of someone you love going into the unknown without you." She frowns a little. "You don't have to make yourself a martyr to show you care, Echo."

She snorts without humour. "You can talk."

"I know." Clarke bites out. "I know. It's still something I'm figuring out. I thought about it a lot, those six years you were in space. But I'm starting to realise that there are ways of loving people other than just taking their troubles on your shoulders."

Echo frowns. That's a nice idea - her shoulders are feeling rather weak, at the moment. But it's a challenge to her long-held worldview. If she is not a loyal soldier, or faithful friend, or devoted partner, then who is she? What use is her love to anyone, if she is not wielding a bow?

She doesn't make any response to Clarke's words, in the end. She simply can't. But she does enjoy sitting in a different seat for a few moments at least.

….

Echo doesn't remember agreeing that walking with Clarke was to become a regular thing. She's a spy, of course, so what she means by that is that they _never agreed_ to make their walks a regular thing. Injured or not, she would have remembered that. So she's a little surprised when Clarke shows up at the same time the following day.

"Fancy a change of scene again?" Clarke asks. As if they're just a normal pair of friends making plans, not the Commander of Death and a spy of the Queen's Guard.

Maybe that's why Echo agrees to the scheme. Maybe that's what she likes about spending time with Clarke - that in the presence of such an infamous mass murderer, her own chequered past feels positively normal. She likes not being the only person in the room with a list of regrets longer than her arm.

"Sure. A change of scene would be nice." She offers, as if this is no big deal.

Clarke nods. "Has Jackson already changed your bandage?" She asks.

"Yeah." Echo frowns slightly. "You were right. It's a messy wound. And with the black blood - it freaked me out a little."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I guess I don't freak out easily." Echo rushes to assure her, defensive. Something about all these unsolicited kind bedside visits has her sharing more than she is used to. "I just - last thing I knew my blood was red. I've been in plenty of difficult situations before now. But I've never had someone tie me down and - and do something to my body whether I liked it or not."

"Yeah. I get that. I guess that's partly why I injected myself all those years ago instead of Emori. That and I didn't want to put her in the radiation chamber."

"Yeah." Echo swallows. "How long did it take you to get used to it?"

"To bleeding black? I guess I had to get used to it pretty quickly when I got my leg caught in a bear trap this one time. That was about two months after Praimfaya."

Echo nods. She can understand that. She knows the colour of her blood makes no difference to her daily life but it's her body, damn it, and she is used to knowing it well and being the master of it.

She certainly doesn't feel like that, here and now, lying limply in bed and relying on Clarke to take her out and about.

Clarke continues speaking, meanwhile. She's a more talkative type than Echo, but she can deal with that. She did survive six years with Raven, after all.

"That's how I met Madi, actually. She lured me into the trap. And yet somehow I knew right away that we were going to hit it off."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's what I would have done. I'd find a clever way to fight back. I guess it's what I did do on Earth, some of the time. So I saw that she was just a scared kid and that we had a lot in common."

Echo nods. And she ought to leave it there, really. Clarke is a friend, more or less, and they are mostly on the same side these days. They are not bosom pals who share their every thought and feeling.

And yet Echo feels a burning need to say the words on the tip of her tongue all the same.

"You're a good mother." She says.

Of course she does. She's seen her share of shoddy childrearing, was a victim of Nia's particular brand of boarding school. And she supposes her mother did her best under the circumstances, but Azgeda was hardly a warm or supportive environment to raise a child. So she finds herself compelled, now, to praise good parenting when she sees it before her very eyes.

Clarke looks surprised - perhaps even shocked. She's blinking heavily, faffing with a scrap of bandage in her fingers.

"I'm not so sure about that." She says, eyes averted. "I thought I was doing OK during Praimfaya. But since you all came back I haven't figured out yet how to balance protecting Madi and being family to you guys."

"You'll get there." Echo says simply, because it seems obvious that she will. "You're starting from the right place - warmth and love and caring about her. And caring about us, too. You'll find a way to make it work."

Clarke nods, but she still looks unconvinced. "Do you want to go for that walk?" She asks, a blatant change of subject.

As it happens, Echo isn't so bothered about the walk, now. Although she hasn't had her change of scene, this friendly face and thought-provoking conversation has done her a great deal of good. But she nods, because she's not going to say no to a little more time chatting.

She seems to remember there was a time when she was a more solitary woman. Times change, it seems, and she doesn't mourn their passing. She is beginning to realise that not every member of the human race is out to hurt her, and that there are plenty among them who can help her heal, too.

She seems to remember, also, that there was a time she felt rather threatened by Clarke. She doesn't just mean threatened by her power and influence back before Praimfaya. No, she's talking about something more frightening by far. She has sometimes wondered in the past whether Clarke harbours more than friendly feelings for Bellamy, whether there is something there that might bloom up like a sudden mushroom and steal Echo's current way of life away from her.

But Echo finds that she is not worried about that, any more. Whether Clarke has any such interest in Bellamy or not, it is clear that she has too much integrity to bother causing relationship drama in the midst of actual life-or-death problems. Her daughter and her people are her priorities, and she seems genuinely content to have Bellamy's deep friendship back in her life.

There is still more at play here, too. Above all, Echo is not worried because she trusts Clarke, now. She likes her, too. She values her friendship more than she has ever allowed herself to value anyone on such a short acquaintance. Sure, they have known each other's names for six years, but she thinks they have only truly got to know each other these last six days.

She gets it now, how people are drawn to Clarke. How Finn and Lexa fell for her so quickly, how Bellamy cares for her so deeply, how Raven goes back to her time and time again no matter how harshly she might condemn her in the meantime. Clarke just has this fire about her that is impossible to resist. It's not _warmth_ exactly, but something more dangerous than that. This raw, urgent humanity that it is so tempting to follow to the ends of the Earth - and even beyond.

So when Clarke suggests a walk, Echo walks. Not because she is some mindless sheep of a follower, but because Clarke is a woman well worth walking with.

….

It isn't until the fifth day that Echo dares to try to give a little more back.

She's no expert at friendship. She has six friends - or five friends and a boyfriend - all of whom befriended her because they were stuck in space with her, not through actual choice.

And then she has Clarke.

So she's not had a lot of practise at cultivating meaningful connections. The first best friend she ever had was the real Echo who she killed and whose life she stole. A story like that will leave a bitter taste in the mouth, strangely enough. Since then Echo has never found it easy to reach out.

But she's determined to try it, today. Clarke has nursed her, but more importantly cheered her. She has welcomed her wholeheartedly into her life when they have been on opposite sides before now - more than once. But most of all, Echo senses that Clarke is lonely despite her ability to win people over. It's as if she is more used to being leader than friend, these days. There have been too many little comments, this week, about how Clarke feels a failure as a mother or how her friends managed just fine without her or how there are aspects of her personality she would change.

She tries starting simple. When Clarke walks into the room and asks if she wants to take a walk, Echo agrees right away.

"Sure. I'd love that. I really appreciate everything you've done this week to cheer me up. You've been very generous with your time and encouragement."

Clarke smiles. "It's what I do. What I try to do, anyway."

"Well you've really lifted me up."

Clarke nods, brows drawn tight in thought. Echo waits. That's how this works, more often than not. Mostly, Clarke speaks first.

"Thanks, Echo. I've really appreciated you, too. It was a long six years and then everything happened so fast. It's been lovely just to spend time with a friend."

"You have other friends." Echo says, encouraging.

Clarke snorts. "I have Bellamy who's currently gone off into the woods with his sister. I'm getting on well with Gaia, but I think she only likes me for Madi's sake. The others haven't forgiven me yet."

"They will." Echo says bracingly.

Clarke does that small half-frown of hers. "Perhaps. But that's why it's been great to spend time with you. Thanks for forgiving me when people I've been friends with longer still haven't."

"It's not about the length of a friendship. It's about the effort you put into it." Echo says, hoping against hope that it's true, because she's trying quite hard with Clarke today. She wants this to last beyond a visit to med bay or Bellamy's return.

"Yeah. I think you're right. Come on, let's walk."

….

Echo is surprised when Bellamy walks into her hospital room the next day. He was out near the anomaly with his sister, last thing she knew. Does this mean something is wrong? Is his sister injured? Does she need to rush out there and help? She may have spent the last few days listening to Clarke tell her that you can care for someone without making a martyr of yourself, but her first instinct is still to drag her broken body out of bed and run out into danger at the first sign that the people she cares about are in trouble.

"Bellamy? What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too." He says mildly, leaning down to kiss her briefly on the lips. "Nothing's wrong. I just came back this morning."

"Oh? Did Gabriel figure out what's going on with Octavia's tattoo?"

There's a moment's pause. Bellamy is frowning, jaw clamped down on words he can't decide whether to say. She's become pretty good at reading him, in the years they have known each other.

"We didn't figure it out yet. But - I'm not needed there, Echo. My sister, she's grown up now. She doesn't need her big brother following her around."

Well, then. It looks like they've both learnt a thing or two about themselves, this week. It looks like they've both experienced a little personal development.

"You're not _needed_ here, either." She says mildly. "But it'll be good to have you back again all the same. You're _wanted_."

He chuckles lightly. "Thanks. That's reassuring. How are you doing?"

"Not bad. My arm still isn't much use."

"So you're going stir crazy then." He concludes.

The thing is, that would have been correct, had things turned out a little differently. If she had to lie here in a sick bed feeling pathetic and hating herself for being unable to follow Bellamy into potential danger, she would have gone stir crazy. She seems to remember she _was_ going stir crazy, back in the beginning.

But one walk a day and a lot of food for thought has steered things in a slightly different direction.

"Not too bad actually." She says lightly. "I've hit it off with Clarke. She's been stopping by to see how I'm getting on."

"I don't know whether that's a good thing or not. I figure you guys could make quite a frightening team." He jokes affectionately.

"Something like that. She'll be here for our walk soon, actually."

"Your walk?"

"Yeah. She's been taking me out walking to get a change of scene while I can't really get around by myself."

Bellamy frowns. "I can lend you my arm, now I'm back. If you want."

She hesitates. She doesn't want to hurt him. She loves him. But she thinks it's pretty healthy that she now has a best friend she walks with as well as a boyfriend she shares her life with.

"It's not really about the walking." She tries. "It's more about the two of us spending some time together."

"Oh. OK. Well maybe in that case I can join you?"

Again, Echo wonders how to phrase this without hurting him. "It's - it's _our_ time, Bellamy. I know we'd both love to catch up with you since you've been gone this week but I think - we both value having some time just hanging out alone and working on our friendship. I don't want it to turn into you and Clarke talking business or us thinking too hard about what we feel comfortable saying in company."

He nods, to her relief. He smiles softly, now understanding exactly what is going on here. "I get that. Maybe I'll just join you for a couple of minutes to tell her I'm back. Or maybe I'll try to bump into her on her way here instead."

"Yeah. That sounds good. And we've got all the time in the world to hang out later, you and me."

"Yeah. I'll come see you later this afternoon. Let me go catch up with Miller while you and Clarke are hanging out."

That sounds perfect, Echo thinks. Maybe in time she'll grow confident enough to suggest that Bellamy adopts a habit of walking with Miller daily, too. She's grown rather convinced that a good friendship is worth investing time in, this week.

It's the first time she's trusted herself to have a best friend since she was seven years old, and honestly? She's proud of herself for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
